


i like your starry eyes, they yell: “surprise, surprise!”

by TurntechLoveThis (angelcult)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (mild), Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blind Dirk Strider, Falling In Love, Fictional Disease, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mild Gore, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious John Egbert, Past Character Death, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Stubborn Dirk Strider, star tear disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:53:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28041213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelcult/pseuds/TurntechLoveThis
Summary: John Egbert is the type of boy you draw hearts for in your schoolbooks, the type of boy who remembers how you like your coffee and that secret you told him in the third grade.At least, that’s how Dirk would describe him, even as he watches him from afar.Falling in love is easy, it’s the knowing if you’re feelings are returned that’s the hardest, and now Dirk finds himself battling a debilitating love sickness all while falling further and further for the kind-hearted boy he has his sights set on.
Relationships: John Egbert/Dirk Strider
Kudos: 25
Collections: DirkJohn Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for the DirkJohn Big Bang, this was super fun to write and please check out the artists I worked with on this [muddledbirdjuice](https://instagram.com/muddledbirdjuice?igshid=16c1v1436ny6h) and [nolipauu](https://instagram.com/nolipauu?igshid=4e3nltsyhgo2) (insta)! you can find the art from muddledbirdjuice [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/CIwTPviB1n8/?igshid=1fn1j86twb5to), it’s so so pretty and I definitely recommend checking it out.
> 
> —
> 
> Title is from “Currents Convulsive” by Pierce The Veil

_“Dave! No-hahaha, no, stop-!”_

John’s laughter brought light into the Strider household. His laughter combated the fussing and the clanging of swords that often echoed through their minds and the halls.

Strider boys and men were made of blood, metal and heartache. 

John Egbert was made of light, laughter and all the many good things people _wanted_ to be, but could never quite achieve.

It was hard not to love someone like that, someone who’s mere existence brought out the good in a person, _that_ was John Egbert.

Dirk could listen to his laugh all day, but right now he’s working so he needs to keep up the façade of the disapproving elder sibling (even if it’s only by three minutes) so he sighs loudly and turns to the two boys playfully wrestling on the bed.

“Dave, John,” He starts, and Dave, who is seemingly incapable of not being antagonistic, mimics him.

_“Dave, John,”_ He even gets Dirk’s almost unnoticeable lisp but Dirk isn’t surprised, they shared a womb and a house and still, at the age of seventeen, they shared a bedroom. 

They aren’t ready to grow apart yet. 

“I’m working, if you’re gonna mess around, do it on the futon.”

“Uh, do you want Bro to kill me if we fuck up his bed?” Dave asked, collapsing back on the bed with John laying across his stomach.

“We have a floor.”

Before Dave could snark back, John sat up, shifting his weight and making Dave grunt as he smiled at Dirk, eyes full of mirth and his pink lips drawing Dirk’s eyes in before he looked at those blue, blue eyes once more.

“Sorry, Dirk! We can go.”

Dave sat up, pushing John off of him and the other boy just giggled, rolling the rest of the way off of the other as Dave spoke.

“Don’t listen to him!”

Dirk rolled his eyes and Dave looked at him sharply even through two layers of tinted glass, they were one in the same, sometimes, on the surface.

“Come on, I’m hungry anyway.” John climbed off the bed and dragged Dave off by his hand, twining their fingers together and swinging them.

It sends a pang of pain striking Dirk right through the heart.

John tossed a smile his way before closing the door and leaving Dirk in the dark, the gentle and blue glow of his computer the only light as it softly illuminated his hair, turning the white color a pale blue and reflecting the screen in his shades.

He loves John’s smile more than anything.

* * *

It was hard for Dirk to process loving someone in _that way._ Mostly because love was a dangerous game, and he often wondered if it was worth it, but these feelings could not be stopped once they had started. 

John just _did_ something to him, completely oblivious to the way Dirk’s eyes follow him, the way he lights up a room, the way he makes Dirk’s heart ache when he cries. 

Dirk is simultaneously terrified and elated by how much he loves John.

“Fuck,” He swears softly, raising his shades up to place atop his head, rubbing lightly at his eyes but it only seemed to irritate the sharp pain that was in them and he spun his computer chair around.

Now that he wasn’t facing the glow of the screen, it had eased it up slightly, but not enough to stop the way he cringed in pain.

Rubbing at them only irritated them more, but Dirk was only human and he felt the need to use his hands to try and soothe the pain, but it did nothing to help. 

Dropping his hands into his lap, he clenched them together and closed his eyes tightly, making the pain shoot through his whole being once more before it slowly started to ebb away and he relaxed minutely. 

“What the hell?” Dirk muttered, going to rub at his eyes with the back of his hand, stopping just short of touching to grab at his leg instead.

Maybe it’s stress, he has been working on this commission nonstop for the past few days and there’s the added pressure of seeing John and Dave..

He kills the thought where it starts, guilty at the thought that Dave shouldn’t be happy with his best friend just because Dirk didn’t know how much longer he could handle being around him without giving himself away.

Dave needed that though, he needed someone who understood him and loved him as unconditionally and wholly as John did.

John loved him in a completely platonic way, but something about those romantic blue eyes and his kind words broke a person down.

He’s seen it more than once where Dave just completely breaks down in John’s arms after he’s said something, his bluntness comes from a place of kindness and understanding, one that Dirk and Bro had always been seemingly incapable of.

Dave wasn’t like them, he couldn’t bury his emotions down until he practically had none, he felt _everything_ , half the time, Dirk thinks Dave got his share of feelings.

John balances him out, he puts Dave’s confusing thoughts into words, and he helps him open up in a way that Dirk knows he never would be able to.

John knows how to make a person feel vulnerable, and that’s just _horrifying._

It’s horrifying and it’s all Dirk wants.

The pain flares up in his eyes again and he curls in on himself.

It’s time for a break, and maybe some rest, this must be a headache from the fact that he hasn’t slept in three days.

He can return to his thoughts of John and commissions and that beautiful light in his eyes tomorrow, when he feels better, when his eyes feel like they no longer have shards of glass in them. 

He carefully saves everything and turns his computer off, standing from his chair and taking a few steps to his bed and collapsing into it, kicking an empty orange Crush can out of it. 

As he falls asleep, he swears he can hear wind chimes.

* * *

The next day, Dirk wakes up around six in the morning, blearily blinking his eyes open. There’s a notable shock of black hair in the other bed in the room, seeing it is oddly comforting as he falls back to sleep. 

When he wakes again, it’s at least noon, and he peels himself out of bed, feeling off kilter and still drowsy, but he forces himself to get up, stretching, as he stumbles out of his shared room to the bathroom, pausing when he passes in front of the mirror.

He leans into it, placing a finger under the lower lid of his eye to force it open, trying to place where the red irritation could have come from. It doesn’t hurt, not like it did last night, maybe he’d gotten something into it?

“Fuck, it’s too early for this..” He goes about getting ready, brushing his teeth so hard there’s blood- he blames it on the fact that he’s already annoyed for some reason he can’t place this early in the day.

Early for him, at the very least. 

More awake than he was earlier, he makes his way into the kitchen, pausing when he sees John and Dave on the couch, laughing at something on Dave’s phone.

They’re pressed together, closer than they need to be, and Dirk feels his pulse quicken, irritation spiking.

Swallowing hard, he goes into the kitchen to dig through the refrigerator for something to eat. Thankfully, Bro had moved all his smuppets and whatnot to his room, mostly because John was there and he didn’t want to incite the wrath of Papa Egbert by accidentally cutting one of his son’s fingers off with a wayward sword.

Dirk opens the fridge, and his sore eyes start to sting, like he’s going to cry, but then they start to hurt more and he slams the fridge shut, taking a step back to cover his eyes when he bumps into the counter.

“What the _fuck-“_ He swears, going to roughly rub at his eyes when a pair of soft hands wrap around his wrists and pull them away.

Instinct tells him to yank his hands away, _demand_ that he isn’t touched again until he’s not in pain but his blurry vision registered romantic blue eyes and worry and it’s like an immediate douse of cold water on his anger. 

He relaxes minutely.

“Are you okay?” John asks, and he’s so close, he smells like something warm and baked, not cake, he knows how much John hates it. 

“Yeah, I-“ He catches a glimpse of Dave over John’s shoulder, worrying watching his friend and not his own brother, and the pain flares up and he slams his eyes shut, he can hear wind chimes again, louder and more insistent than last night and he starts to sink to the ground.

John, sweet John, he guides him down, lowering them to the ground carefully. Dirk feels like crying, in both embarrassment and pain. He doesn’t deserve John’s kindness, he doesn’t deserve a lot of things.

John’s like some angel, an angel made of wind and fury, _terrifying._

“Dirk, what’s going on?” John asks, and his voice shakes, but Dirk can only shake his head and keep his eyes tightly closed.

“Fuck, I’m going to wake Bro up.” Dave rushed out, shaken, and it’s only now that Dirk considers that his brother might be feeling the phantom pain of it.

_A perk of being twins,_ Dirk thinks sarcastically through the wind chimes and the pain.

The other boy doesn’t respond, but he does hesitantly let go of Dirk’s wrists.

“Can I-can I see?” John’s small stutter is enough to convince him, and Dirk nods, forcing his eyes open.

John’s closer now, squinting at him through his glasses, searching for something.

Dirk is more worried about the little crease between his eyebrows, a small wrinkle that holds all his worry and confusion, and Dirk wants it gone. He prefers the crinkle of his nose when he laughs, the way the corners of his lips quirk up when he smirks playfully.

“Your eyes are really red. Did you get something in them?” He asks and Dirk shakes his head, and he ruled out the possibility of it being pinkeye, this hurts too much.

Suddenly, John is moving out of the way and Bro is replacing him. His fatigue is obvious, sleep still weighing on the downward curve of his lips but he doesn’t look irritated or annoyed.

Stil, his presence is enough to make Dirk flinch away, he doesn’t want to see that unimpressed look that’ll fill Bro’s unobstructed gaze when he discovers that Dirk can't handle a little pain.

“Hold still,” He whispers, his voice is always soft, his accent thick on his tongue as he tilts Dirk’s head back and peers into his eyes.

The orange of his eyes is darker than Dirk’s, burnt and tired, but this close up, the younger Strider can see the worry in them.

His brow furrows, just a slight show of confusion, and he lets Dirk go, sitting back.

“Well, s’not a sty, did you get hit in ‘em or somethin’?” He asks quietly and Dirk shakes his head. The furrow of his brows deepen.

“How long this been goin’ on?” Because he’s Bro, and well, Dirk is so much like him, he _knows_ that this isn’t the first time like he could have probably passed it off as to Dave and John.

“Just today and last night, it’s fine.” Almost as if to spite him; his eyes start to hurt more, an all-encompassing stabbing and he closes his eyes, gritting his teeth against the pain.

Bro frowns, standing up and sighing softly, pushing his bangs from his face.

“Let me get dressed,” He starts and Dave speaks up before he can finish.

“Why?”

“We’re takin’ him to the hospital-“

“I don’t need to go to the hospital-“ Dirk starts to argue, and before Bro can respond, John is speaking up.

“Dirk, we should at least see if they can help.” Bro watches as Dirk’s argument dies on his lips and he nods.

Eyebrows quirking up in surprise, Bro can’t help but find that a little.. interesting.

* * *

“Well, we can’t see a problem with his eyes. There’s nothing in them, he doesn’t have pinkeye or a sty, and the only irritation seems to be coming from touching around his eyes and drying out of the eye.” The doctor informs Bro, and the man nods, frowning the entire time.

“The best we can provide for him now is pain medicine and eye drops to soothe the irritation.”

“Thank you,” Bro says, when he really wants to argue, because on the way here, the sunlight had hit Dirk’s eyes over his shades and he’d nearly broken down and Bro can’t explain to a person who may not have kids how scary it is to see the ones you raised in pain.

This isn’t like a strife, where all the swings of his blade are pulled, where he knows how to handle something going wrong.

He can’t fix this, not with gauze or ibuprofen. 

They drive him in silence, even the usually smiling John is subdued.

Bro can’t fix this, but he wants to.

He thinks back on the way Dirk was looking at John in the kitchen, how he was staring at him like he’d hung the moon and stars and he just.. wonders.

* * *

“Take two of these a day, and use this once in the morning and before bed.” Bro recites and Dirk just nods, taking the bag of medicine from Bro.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong, they probably just thought he was overreacting even though his blood pressure had been high because he was in so much pain.

Whatever.

“You should go back to bed.” Dirk says in place of a response, because he knows how tired his older brother is and he doesn’t mind setting aside his (thankfully, subsided) pain to worry for him.

He’d rather worry for everyone but himself right now.

He’ll check on Dave after he gets Bro handled.

The older man gives him a tired smile and ruffles his hair, he isn’t wearing his shades, never grabbed him when they’d rushed out, like he was too focused on Dirk.

He sped a little on the way to the hospital. 

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m fine, just gonna go talk to Dave, make sure he’s cool.”

“Okay. Just..” Something he couldn’t recognize flashed in Bro’s eyes. “Be careful.”

He left after that, retreating back to bed.

Rolling his eyes, he winced when they throbbed as if to remind him that they could start hurting at _any time_ but he shrugged it off to go looking for Dave.

He found him in their room, curled up on his bed.

“Hey.” He greeted and Dave grunted in response, not reacting when Dirk sat down on the side of the bed.

“What’s up, you okay?” Dave didn’t respond at first, just biting his lips. He wasn’t wearing his shades, his eyes looked wet.

“Dave?”

“They don’t know what’s going on, the doctors.” He starts suddenly and harsh, voice angry.

“Yeah?” Dirk doesn’t know why he’s pointing it out, they were all there when they’d been told they didn’t know what was wrong with Dirk.

“How can we _help_ if we don’t know what’s wrong?” Dave snaps, sitting up suddenly and wiping tears from his eyes. “Huh? What if it gets worse? What if you-“

Oh.

That’s what this is about. 

“Dave..” Dirk starts, and Dave cuts him off. 

“Don’t say my name like that-“

“Like what?”

“Like _Mom.”_

They both fall silent, a heavy and crushing thing, it weighed on their chest and suffocated them. 

“This.. isn’t like mom.”

“What if it is?” Dave asks, and Dirk flinches. He prides himself on his intellect, but emotions, those were a minefield and logic could not be applied to them. He’s feeling a lot right now, he feels hopeless, and angry and.. sad.

“It’s not.” He says softly, because what if it is? What if the doctor told Bro something that he doesn’t know how to break to Dirk just yet.

“It could be cancer.”

“It’s not-it’s not cancer.. and besides, Mom used to complain about headaches. Remember? She always said her head hurt and then Bro would turn all the lights in the house off.” Dirk told him, trying to convince his brother and himself.

“It’s not anything that won’t fix itself.” 

Dave huffs, because his brother is _stubborn,_ and he doesn’t know how to stand down, and he is too, but he knows how to pick his battles.

If Dirk says it isn't cancer, then it won't be. As completely illogical as it sounds to both of them.

“Bro was sleeping in his room earlier,” Dirk says suddenly and Dave smiles.

“He left so John and I could sit in there.” Dave informs his twin and the older of them smiles, and he has to remind himself of the small blessings.

“He never sleeps in there.”

“No.. but he’s getting better.” 

Of the three of them, Bro had been the closest with their mother, and he used to sleep in the same room as her when her health started to decline, either to be close enough to help at a moment’s notice or because he was scared, Dirk would never know that answer. 

Now, Bro never sleeps in his own room, as if something bad will happen if he does.

Dirk was only four when she died.

He barely knew her, but he can remember her face, the way she laughed, he remembers her voice and how she always smelled like wine and sugar.

He knew her enough that it left a scar when she was gone.

“How is John? With everything?”

Dave shrugs, looking at the floor as he spoke.

“Worried, for one. Other than that, he’s sort of.. Blank? Like, better than Bro.” That made Dirk sit up a little, frowning. He’d never known John to be closed off, and while they weren’t _close,_ it felt.. wrong.

“He knows about Mom, so, you know.” Dave adds, and Dirk looks away from his brother, clearly thinking about what that could mean.

He knows that John lost his mom too, but the circumstances were always unknown, hell, Dave might not even know.

“Sometimes when he gets worried and scared or something he just.. shuts down.” The tears are back in Dave’s eyes, this day must have been hell on his nerves. “And that scares me.. it scares me so much.”

Dirk doesn’t know what to say, because some part of him can’t remember how to comfort his own twin, so he just hugs him. He hugs him hard, like he can take all that pain he’s feeling away, like if he hugs him tight enough, it’ll bring back their mom and it’ll stop the stabbing in his eyes.

Anything.

But his hug does none of that, it just makes Dave cry harder.

* * *

John is curled up on the futon, sitting in the corner with knees pulled up to his chest, staring at the blank screen of the tv. 

Dirk has never seen him so.. quiet.

With John, there is noise, usually laughter, and so Dirk has always associated him with that, with rampant laughter and sunshine, but this.. is none of those things.

He hesitantly sits beside him and John looks over, immediately perking up. When he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“How are you feeling? Better?”

Dirk nods.

“How about you? You aren’t looking so hot yourself.” In any other situation, or maybe another universe, Dirk would be sure to add that John always looks hot, but he won’t, not now, not here.

“I’m fine, just thinking. No need to worry about me.” He reassures, but Dirk just shrugs, leaning back on the futon and turning a little more towards John.

“It’s okay if you aren’t. I know you didn’t expect all this when you planned to hang with Dave this week.”

John frowned and shook his head. “Dirk, you’re my friend too,” and it hurts to hear John call him a friend, a little word that makes him want to cry. “And if you’re hurting like that, I want to help.”

“I know, but I didn’t know it would get so bad. It didn’t really hurt much last night.” Which is a lie, and he doesn’t want to lie to John, but anything to make the furrow is his brow straighten out.

“Dirk,” John says with a little sigh, like how Bro used to say his boyfriend’s name when he was exasperated but amused. Dirk knows that John doesn’t mean it that way though, and it aches, it hurts like hell.

“I care about you.” He says it with a smile, and this time his eyes light up a little, like it’s silly that Dirk doesn’t know that.

“Yeah, I know. I care about you too.” And he does, maybe more than he should.

John hugs him, wrapping his arms around him and squeezing and for a moment, Dirk doesn’t know where to place his hands before he lays them on the small of John’s back.

He’s so warm, and it does unholy things to Dirk’s heart, near palpitations and flips in his chest, he smells good too, it’s stronger now that he’s so close and his hair smells like vanilla.

Dirk hugs him a little tighter before he lets him go.

“Thanks, John.”

* * *

When John leaves at the end of the week, Dirk hasn’t had any more incidents, and he is content with that.

His crush (as if being in _love_ is simply a “crush”) hasn’t eased up though. John had been so gentle with him for the rest of the time he was there, constantly forcing him away from his computer even though he had work to do.

He did it though, only because he could feel John searching his eyes for an irritated red.

Anything to stop the worry in those eyes.

Tonight is the first day without him, and the apartment already feels dulled down and less bright, his light isn’t shining, filling in the cracks with warmth and the sweet smell of vanilla, and the warm, baked smell that is distinctly _John._

Dirk hates it when he’s gone, because even if John is completely unaware of his feelings, sometimes his presence is enough to soothe his aching.

Sometimes it’s enough to make it worse, but it’s a toss-up he’s willing to make, it’s better than the emptiness and longing. 

  
  


Dave flops down on Dirk’s bed, so he could be closer to him as he watched him code. His shades are on but Dirk can feel his eyes and he speaks up.

“You need something?” He asked, and Dave, who doesn’t know how to be subtle, speaks like he’s been waiting for the chance they were alone.

“Do you have the hots for John?”

Dirk stops typing.

“What?”

“I just.. I don’t know, call it a _feeling,_ but do you have a crush on John?” Dave sits up on his elbows and Dirk spins around in the chair, face carefully blanked of emotion.

“And you ask because?” He even raises his eyebrow a little and Dave breathes out through his nose harshly.

“I ask because you’re my brother and he’s my best friend.” Dave shrugs after. “And you’re pretty obvious too.”

“What?”

“I didn’t want to say anything at first but, dude, you are _not_ subtle,” Oh, the irony of that statement is not lost on either of them, “and I guess I just wanted to, I don’t know, confirm or deny?”

_Well,_ Dirk thinks to himself, _no use lying now._

Not to mention, they’d never been able to really lie to each other. It was one of the many perks of being twins. 

“Yeah, but as you said, he’s your best friend. I’m not getting in the way of that. You two.. need each other.” Dirk says it and knows it’s true, and that _stings,_ he’d be like the Snake in the Garden if he didn’t respect that, if he came between them.

“What?” Dave asked, brow furrowing. Dirk rolled his eyes.

“You two were made for each other or some shit, I couldn’t mess that up because I couldn’t keep my feelings in check.. I _love_ him and all that.. but I can’t ruin that for you.” Dirk explained and Dave shook his head quickly, taking his shades off.

“Whoa, whoa- That's not- that’s not what I’m saying Dirk, not even close. I.. don’t mind it, really.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings.” Dirk snapped but he knows Dave isn’t lying, and Dave knows that he’s aware of it too.

“When have I ever spared your feelings, dude? I’m being deadass right now, if you have feelings for John, if you _love John,_ you should go for it.”

“John’s not even queer,” Dirk pointed out and Dave raised his eyebrows.

“He wears a pride button on his jacket.”

“What?”

“There’s a pan pride button on his jacket? Next to the Ghostbusters one? And the flag?” Dave was looking more and more amused as he spoke, and Dirk isn’t sure he’ll be able to live this one down.

“Oh. The flag?”

“Yeah,” Dave started mockingly. _“Oh,”_ He rolled his eyes playfully and paused. “The Korean flag? You’ve seen that one right-“

“No, I knew that.”

Dirk rolls his eyes and then- an excruciating thought comes to mind. It stops him, and his playful mood plummets right back into self-doubt and debilitating heartache. 

“But he’ll never want me. Not when..” _Not when he has you._

Dirk feels his eyes tears up and he takes his shades off because crying in them is always uncomfortable, not that he cries often. 

“Dirk?” Dave sits up and scoots to the edge of the bed so that he can get closer to the other, unsure if he should touch him or not.

“He’ll never want me.” Dirk hated how quickly his insecurities and worst fears come spilling out when Dave is around, how he can be stoic and angry and hurt until his twin is near, and then he just.. breaks.

He jokes about how Dave got his share of emotions, but he knows he’s got an unruly set himself, that he wishes he could turn off.

“No, I don’t think that’s true-“

“Ah- fuck-“ 

They speak over one another but Dirk’s sharp words ring out louder as he curls in on himself, and he’s crying, but it feels like someone’s shoving glass into his eyes, or clawing them out. It hurts so fucking much that he can’t even focus on Dave’s words, he can feel him touching him and he just shakes him off and then he hears him leaving.

Everyone always leaves.

His mind supplies thoughts of Jake that _definitely_ don’t help, and he cries harder and the pain increases tenfold.

And along with the thoughts of Jake there’s the sound of _wind chimes_ and _shattering glass._

He can’t focus or think, everything is surrounding that mind-numbing hurt that’s radiating outward from his eyes.

Someone’s screaming, and distantly, he thinks it might be himself.

* * *

Dirk’s screaming, and the sound sends chills down Dave’s spine. 

He’s in so much pain, and when he returns back to the room with Bro in tow, Dirk is curled up on the floor now, in fetal position, clawing at his eyes.

“Fuck,” Bro swears, rushing over with Dave not too far behind. They both drop to Dirk’s side and pull his hands away, he has red scratches at his eyelids, his nails are too short to really do much damage.

So, it really doesn’t explain the blood on Dirk’s cheeks.

Is he.. _crying blood?_

The thought makes Dave sick.

Bro doesn’t know what to do, his older brother who seemingly has all the answers is finally out of solutions.

“Dirk!” Dave snaps, because he’s still screaming and now he’s trying to scratch at his eyes again. He grabs his wrists and holds them down, grip so tight that it must be bruising, and now that he’s this close, he can see Dirk’s eyes and-

“What the fuck.” He breathes out, his tears are glittering like glass and they’re crystallized, almost like he’s crying glass but the way they’ve formed reminds him of stars. 

“What the fuck,” He repeats, because Dirk’s crying glass and blood and he’s trying to wrestle him off and he’s in love with his best friend.

What the _fuck._

“Move, go start the car.” Dave lets Dirk go and Bro immediately scoops him up into his arms, pressing Dirk’s arms to his chest and holding him tightly.

He picks him up like he weighs nothing at all, like he isn’t a well-fed seventeen year old boy with extensive sword training.

“Dave!” Bro snaps, and he never speaks so loudly, he’s scared. 

“Okay, okay, come on.” 

They rush out to the truck, and Dirk is still crying, it must hurt too much to stop, a vicious cycle. 

Bro climbs into the back so that he can keep a hold on Dirk and Dave climbs into the front. He’s shaking so hard he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to drive but then Dirk screams again and he’s peeling out of the parking lot.

He can hear Bro speaking to Dirk, and they both know he can’t hear it through the fog that must be clouding him, and they’re both terrified.

The reassurances reach Dave’s ears and his vision blurs with tears.

_“It’s okay, little bro, we got you. Davey and I got you, we’re gonna get you to the hospital and fix this, nothin’ is gonna happen to you…”_

Over and over, promises that Bro can’t fill, writing a check he might not be able to cash. 

Dave turns so sharply he sees one of the hubcaps come off the wheel and he’s out of the driver’s seat before the car can fully shift into park.

From there it’s a blur of doctors and Dirk’s being placed on a gurney and now he’s sitting on a hard, black plastic chair with Bro at his side.

Bro has blood, _Dirk’s blood,_ on his hands, and he’s just staring at it like he can’t comprehend it. Distantly, Dave thinks they are both in shock.

His mind is foggy right now, Dirk’s screams are still ringing in his ears, but one thing out of all of this scares him more than anything he’s ever felt.

For once in his life, he can’t feel Dirk’s pain. 

* * *

John comes into the lobby, eyes searching, they land on Dave and his relief is instant. He rushes to Dave’s side, speaking quickly.

“What’s up? What’s wrong?” 

He can hear his father behind him, he went to Bro’s side and John is glad because he can only focus on one Strider at a time.

Dave is blank, in a way that scares John, he’s staring at the floor and the only indication that he even knows John is there is the way he turns his head in his direction.

John sits in the empty seat beside him and turns his head towards him, he isn’t wearing his shades, he’s been crying.

“Dave?”

“Something’s really wrong with Dirk.” He rushes out and he shakes his head. “I can’t-I can’t lose him, John, I can’t-“ 

John’s bundling him into a hug before he can get the rest of his sentence out, because he _knows,_ he really does. 

He doesn’t want to lose Dirk either. Some part of him that he can’t define just aches at the thought, too different from how he feels for Dave to be comparable, just that he doesn’t want to lose him.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

“It’s not-“

“Dave-“

The albino pushed away from John and it stung, but he knew that Dave didn’t do it to hurt him. Their eyes locked and John gasps quietly, he’s never seen so much pain in Dave’s eyes before. 

“He was _bleeding from his eyes_ and there was glass and-and he wouldn’t stop screaming, John, he just kept _screaming.”_

Tears start making a film over his eyes, glossing them over and making them shiny and Hollywood beautiful under the glow of the hospital lights.

“I can still hear it, I-“ He gripped at his hair with his hands and shook his head again.

“I won’t ever stop hearing it.”

John doesn’t know what to do, he can’t stop this helplessness. 

It’s eating him up inside.

* * *

_“I can still hear it. I won’t ever stop hearing it.”_

The sheer anguish in Dave’s voice haunts Bro, knowing that if they lost Dirk, Dave would never be the same is more painful than he can put into words.

“Ambrose?”

He looked up and frowned a little at the sight of James Egbert, but it made sense that he would be here if John was. 

“Hey, James.” His voice was rough and the palms of his hands stung. 

Bright blue eyes fell to his hands and worry flashed in them, he quickly sat beside him and gently pulled his hands into his lap, fussing over him.

“Your hands are full of glass, how in the world did that happen? Did you drive here like this?”

“Dave drove.”

James frowned and looked back at his hands.

“I’ll get a nurse. Hold on.”

Bro watched him leave and tilted his head a little. His eyes were a romantic blue, yeah, _romantic._

But Bro didn’t have time for romance, his brother was crying glass and part of him didn’t feel deserving. 

* * *

Dirk couldn’t see, it was just a darkness that reached beyond one of his primary senses and made him uneasy. He could smell antiseptic and taste something bitter and clean— bleach.

It was quiet, but within that silence was a steady beep and the sound of talking and moving outside of wherever he was, a room, maybe, he was sitting on a bed.

_A hospital,_ he identified uneasily.

One of his hands felt cautiously up his cheek and over the covering on his eyes.

His eyes were wrapped in gauze and he wasn’t hurting like he’d expected, did he pass out at some point?

He remembers hearing Bro and Dave’s voice in their room, but everything after that had faded away to nothing but pain and static. 

“Oh, you’re awake.” He jumped and the woman talking apologized as she walked over, lightly resting her hand over Dirk’s.

He turned his head in her general direction and she started to speak softly.

“You’ve been asleep for a while, we weren’t expecting you to wake up for about a day or so. You’re currently on morphine, with a slow drip. Are you currently in any pain?”

“No, not really.” There’s a faint twinge in his eyes, like his body is searching for feeling, but there’s a mostly pleasant hum of the morphine as it pumps through his veins and part of him is sick.

He hates medication and the way it makes him feel, the loss of control.

“Good. Now, the doctor wants to keep you here a few days so we can try and see what’s going on. In the meantime, your brothers have been out there waiting. Do you want them to know you’re awake?”

He perked up and nodded. “Oh, uhm, yes. Yes, please.”

Dirk could hear her fiddling with things around the room before she left and he was alone again, and that felt oddly oppressive, like it was weighing on his shoulders and he swallowed harshly.

The silence felt like it was dragging on until he heard feet and voices and he looked in the general direction of it.

“Dirk, holy shit, man.” Was the only warning he got before Dave was practically throwing himself at him, damn near in his lap as he hugged him, and Dirk melted into it.

They couldn’t have been apart for that long, but Dirk felt more relaxed knowing that his twin wasn’t that far from him now.

“Bro’s here, and John is too.” Dirk flushed at the mention of John being there, while he was so weak, but he nodded and squeezed Dave before letting go, getting an armful of John as he did.

His sweet smell was a signifier, and he was smaller than Dave, he fit perfectly into Dirk’s arms and it sent a jolt through his body, the twinge in his eyes pulsing until John pulled away.

“Dad’s here. He was worried.” 

His hands gripped Dirk’s and squeezed before pulling away.

Bro hugged him gently, like he was scared he was going to break him, and Dirk felt the same, he hated how weak he felt.

“Thanks for staying.” He said awkwardly and scooted over a little when he felt pressure and knew that it was Dave crawling into bed, they’d always been hard to pull apart. 

“Dude, you don’t have to thank us for that. We love you and we were worried.” Dave lightly bumped his shoulder with his own and Dirk smiled.

“Yeah..”

It fell quiet, and it was almost uncomfortable, but Dirk knew it was because everyone had nothing to go off of, no clues or threads of information to follow to explain this mess. 

“Mr. Strider?”

The doctor swallowed awkwardly when three heads turned towards him before gesturing for the eldest Strider to follow him. 

“Think they figured out what’s going on?” John asked, walking over to the bed and sitting in the empty chair beside it.

Dave shrugged and glanced at Dirk, who was quiet in an uncharacteristic way, and he frowned to himself.

“I hope so.”

Bro was gone for about ten minutes, and a tension had settled over the room, and when he walked back in without the doctor, he had a grim expression that couldn’t be hidden even with his shades.

Dave climbed out of the hospital bed, sliding one of his hands over Dirk’s wrist to let him know he was moving as he made his way to their big brother.

“Bro?”

“I need to talk to Dirk for a moment.” He said softly, and it sounded cold but buried underneath, Dave could hear the worry and the fear, and it sent a cold shock through him.

Fear of _what?_

Dave nodded obediently and grabbed John’s hand as he left out, feeling odd as he remembered Dirk’s crush on the other boy but it was easily overridden by his worry for his brother.

Just what was going on?

* * *

Dirk looked absolutely pitiful and small in the hospital bed, surrounded by wires and his eyes hidden by white gauze, hair mussed from when he’d seized (God, he could barely keep it together when the doctor told him that he’d _seized._ ), he was pale.

Bro has never seen him so pale.

“Bro?” Even his voice was weak and soft, he was nervously pulling at the sheets pooled around his waist.

“Dirk..” How did he break it to him? 

“Between you and me, I don’t think the soap opera drama really suits us.” Dirk said blankly, he knows he’s barely holding himself together, he knows that his nerves must show on his face and in the shake of his hands.

He knows he’s going to break down regardless of what Bro tells him.

He hears Bro pull the chair next to him and the creak as he sits in it, the sigh as age and time and worry settles on his shoulders, and he’s happy that he can’t see him, he isn’t sure if he’d be able to take seeing his big brother so vulnerable.

“It’s a rare disease, they called it _Nebulis Lacrima,_ or in English,” It gets a little huff out of Dirk, a misplaced laugh, a broken attempt. “Star Tear Disease, it comes from.. Unrequited love.”

Dirk grew tense the more he spoke, lips drawing into a thin line, the furrow of his brow deepening and putting a crease in his forehead and he’s too young for that contemplative look, that uncertainty.

He licks his lips, a quick flash of his tongue and then he’s speaking, and his voice shakes.

“What happens if it goes on for too long?”

He can hear the shuffle of Bro’s feet, the bottom of his shoes briefly shuffling against cold linoleum.

“You go blind. If it keeps going, the shards will stick in your brain. You die.”

Cold, clinical, like when he taught Dirk how to sword fight, how to riposte, and it’s what he needs, _coldness,_ certainty.

It drags a painful pulse to his eyes even with the drugs in his bloodstream, and he realizes that morphine doesn’t really work on emotional pain.

“Who is it?” Bro asks, and Dirk’s mouth twitches, a thin line transitioning into a frown and then he shakes his head.

“Doesn’t matter.” Because it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, even if it should have.

“Dirk,” Bro’s tone is pleading, and Dirk knows he’s hurting him, but goddamn it, he’s hurting too, he could die, if he’s going to die, at least only one person will ever know.

“No. It doesn’t matter.” He turns his head away, showing that he doesn’t want to talk any longer and he can hear the sigh escape Bro, the shuffle of the chair, drag of clothes as he moves.

“Okay, little bro.” Bro reaches for him and stops short, he knows he’ll regret it, but Dirk is so much like him that he’d take his attempt to comfort as an admittance of weakness.

He’s raised him wrong. 

* * *

John is a star, he shines and glimmers and people wish on him, he’s the type of person you put your faith in to lead you, because he will never lead you astray. 

But like most stars, he’s been dead for years. The light everyone sees is slowly becoming more and more superficial until soon, it will no longer exist.

Not many know that.

They don’t know that John stopped being alive around the time he lost his mom, and the hole inside of him only grew and grew until he was hungry for something more, a collapsar.

He’ll eat himself into nothing soon, into darkness. 

But here, in the hospital room, he can feel everything, his chest is full of an ache he hasn’t felt in a long time, like when he was younger, like when he visited his mother in the hospital.

He hates hospitals as much as he loves them.

Dave is quiet beside him, leaning against his shoulder, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. They’ve been waiting for Bro to come out of Dirk’s room for about fifteen minutes now, and Dave’s been getting more and more restless as time goes on. 

“I’ll go check on them.” John tells him, and Dave sits up, nodding sharply but he can see in his eyes that he’s not really there.

John spares a glance to his father, who nods, a slight incline of the head more than anything, really, and he knows that he’ll keep an eye on Dave. 

He leaves the cold waiting room to walk down the even cooler hall, finding Dirk’s room with ease but as he’s reaching for the door, it opens and Bro stops, eyebrows raising in question. 

“Oh, I was- I was just coming to check on you two.” John says softly, and there’s a weird emotion in Bro’s eyes, he’d taken his shades off at some point, but John’s never been around him enough to tell which emotion is his default one.

“You can go see him again, if you want, I need to check on Dave.” And now John can see it, the tiredness on his shoulders, the weight in his eyes, the self-hatred and the way his eyes flicker behind John, worry for his brother visible on his face.

So much in a span of only a few seconds, and John just nods.

“Okay. He needs you.” He smiles and Bro gives a smile back, but it’s mostly a grimace and he steps aside so that John can step into the room.

Dirk looks just as small and vulnerable as he did earlier, but there’s a tenseness in his shoulders, and he shifts when he hears John walk in.

“Hey,” John says, smiling softly even though he knows Dirk can’t see it, he hopes that he can hear it in his voice.

“Oh, John.” He perks up a little and it makes John smile to see the way his expressive eyebrows raise over the bandages on his eyes.

He wishes more people could see just how expressive Dirk is, the way his words are actually full of emotion and how he lets his feelings rest on his face.

John’s never understood why no one else could see it.

He sits next to Dirk’s bed, and gently grabs his hand. Dirk tenses up and John frowns.

“I came to check on you.” Dirk frowns and pulls his hand away.

“I don’t need checking up on.” He mutters, and John sighs heavily through his nose, rolling his eyes a little, but it’s hard to keep the smile off of his face at Dirk’s stubbornness.

“You’re in a hospital bed. You need at least a little checking up on.” John replies, resting his arms on the bed railing and laying his head atop them, looking up at Dirk.

“Does anything hurt?”

“.. my eyes ache a little, but I don’t mind. I.. don’t want to feel completely numb.” Dirk says softly, nodding after as if confirming with himself that that was what he wanted to say and John hums softly.

“Do you want to listen to some music?”

It was such a sudden request that Dirk can only smile a little and nod.

John smiles and digs his phone out of his pocket, clicking through until he found his music app, hitting shuffle.

Music started to play clearly through his phone’s speakers.

_“At seventeen I started to starve myself, I thought that love was a kind of emptiness…”_

Dirk leaned his head back and he heard John relax beside him as the music thrummed through the room, and somehow, Dirk never thought that John would listen to music quite like this.

There’s a sort of desperation in it, a longing for something, but what? As the song entails, Dirk wonders idly: _“what is John hungry for?”_

He doesn’t even remember falling asleep.

* * *

The tests felt endless, _constant,_ doctors poking and prodding about his “rare” illness, like he wasn’t a real person, in _fucking pain,_ and he’s fairly certain that he might snap soon.

“A few days” turned to a week and so on as they realized that Dirk’s condition was too unstable to just send him home.

His reprieve is about five foot six, with jet black hair and a cute smile, and John tries to visit everyday, climbing into bed with him or sitting near his feet and they just talk or listen to music, whichever feels more fitting.

They’re growing closer, but as they do, Dirk’s condition grows worse.

It takes a toll on all of them.

This time when John visits, Dirk’s bandages are getting changed. 

The nurse tells him to just sit down and wait, but John’s close to them and the sight hurts him.

Dirk’s eyelashes are stained red from blood, his eyes have a film over them, making them look foggy but the way they dart around give away his ability to see. 

(John wonders how _much_ he can see, and it scares him, so he stops wondering all together.)

There’s dried blood and scabbed cuts on his cheeks and beneath his eyes, his tear ducts are an irritated red, full of blood but the nurse is careful as she cleans his face and eyes.

His eyes are given time to adjust, he’s led through little tests to see how well his sight and tracking are.

His eyes jump, unable to steadily follow a line, or even occasionally not tracking her finger at all.

Soon, he’s being bandaged back up and the nurse leaves, a heavy silence falls over them before John breaks it.

“Dirk,” His voice is soft but blank, and Dirk tenses up as he looks towards John’s voice, but he can mostly just sort of tell where he is.

A shift, a weird knowing.

“Yes?”

“You..” He hears John sigh, and there’s pain in his voice. “You never told us what was wrong, Dave and I.”

Dirk hadn’t been planning on it either, his pride was choking him up and he turned his head away.

“I-“

“And we’re both so worried and we don’t even know _what_ we’re worried about and-and Dirk-“

“What?” Dirk snaps, turning back to John. His heart is pounding in his chest, things are spiraling, so fast, so sudden and out of the blue.

“I’m scared! I’m fucking scared, okay?” He can hear tears in John’s voice, a crack in his voice as he says the word “scared”, a bit of weakness, because John was never scared to be real, to knock down his defenses and shatter his walls until nothing was left behind.

It makes his eyes prickle in sympathy, an easily ignorable pain.

“John-“

“No, _listen,_ you didn’t tell us what was wrong and your eyes, god, you look _blind.”_

“So what if I do?” Because when backed into corners, Striders only know how to attack, only know how to snap and bare their teeth like feral dogs.

“You could die! Is it cancer? Is that why you aren’t telling Dave?” John’s tone goes stony and cold, a resigned pain, one neatly and quickly tucked away into near nothingness.

“No.” Dirk’s voice shakes. “It’s not _cancer._ It’s not anything like that.”

“What is it?”

“John-“

“As God is my witness, Dirk, I will walk out that door and not come back.”

And for a moment, Dirk wants to question him: _“isn’t God always your witness? You’re an angel, are you not always in His sight and love?”_

(For a moment, he considers not answering, he thinks about how broken he will be if John leaves, how this disease would just consume him.)

“Wait, wait-“

Dirk grabs his sheets in his hands, bunches it up between his fingers and looks away.

“It’s… it’s called Star Tear Disease.”

“Star Tear?”

“Like Hanahaki but rarer, it comes with.. a really strong unrequited love.” His voice softens to a whisper.

“Who is it? Is it Jake?” John asks softly, and that’s what breaks him down, the way John doesn’t even consider himself.

“You.”

“What?”

“John, it’s _you._ I’m in love with you.”

Dirk will never forget the silence that fills the room, the way even John’s soft breathing seemed to have stopped.

“What?” He repeats, and Dirk just shakes his head.

“It’s always been you.”

He hears John’s feet as he leaves, and the tears come promptly.

* * *

He can’t feel much of anything, it’s like the black hole finally managed to swallow everything, now there’s nothing left.

_“I’m in love with you. It’s always been you.”_

What is love?

John doesn’t know.

He knows his father’s love, he shows his love everyday and in everything he does, but that’s a different sort of love.

What’s the love that Dirk has for him?

Is it _Eros?_ A deep romantic love, passion and sparks, and all the things of fairy tales.

Pragma? Storge?

_What is it, what is love?_

A collapsar is a star that’s collapsed into itself, from its own gravity, it can turn into many things, but John knows that this is a black hole, sucking out all of the happiness in him. 

_“It’s always been you.”_

It must have been some cruel response, snapping back at him for threatening to leave, no matter how empty of a threat it had been. It burns, _hurts,_ in a way he can’t put into words but it fades back into numbness just as quickly.

He leaves the hospital faster than he’d come, usually having to be ushered out by a nurse.

Breaking down, that’s what he’s doing, what he’s feeling, he’s _breaking down._

* * *

James Egbert is a respectable man. He works, he’s a single father raising his son to be just as respectable and caring as he is.

He still wears his wedding ring.

It’s been twelve years and the only time he takes it off is when his hands run the risk of getting wet or dirty.

He’s doing that now, taking off his wedding ring so that he can wash the dishes from the dinner he just made, he’s expecting John home a little late tonight (he hopes, he doesn’t want the food to go to waste, John hasn’t been eating), but what he doesn’t expect is for his son to be back so quickly.

He’d driven his own car, and now, he was back worryingly fast.

“John?” James called, as if just making sure it was him, leaning around the corner of the kitchen and peeking through the dining room.

The wall for the living room and foyer was in the way, but after a few seconds his son rounded it, and James’ eyes widened a little.

John’s eyes were red, his cheeks were mostly red, the blue of his eyes seemed duller.

“John?” He met him halfway, and John collapsed into him, not making any noise as he cried, but the wet tears that seeped into his shirt told him more than enough.

Did he drive like this?

James hoped not, he couldn’t cope with the possibility that John may have gotten behind the wheel while barely being able to see.

“Dad-“ He forced out and then inhaled sharply, his breathing too fast and rushed now as he tried to speak.

“Shh, shh, John- breathe with me, come on..” Inhale, hold, exhale, repeated over and over until John wasn’t running the risk of passing out any longer.

“Do you want to talk about it?” John shook his head, and Dad hummed, rubbing up and down his back in soothing circles.

“Not now or now ever?” Just to be sure, he had to ask.

“Not now.” His voice was raw and broken, cracking.

“Okay, John, that’s okay. It’s all okay.” 

But it wasn’t, and some hopeless part of him surmised that it never would be.

* * *

Dinner is left, cold and untouched, packed away into cute little plastic containers, left to be either given out freely and shared with neighbors or forgotten about in the fridge.

Neither had an appetite, James’ lost to worry, and John’s having disappeared sometime around the hospital visit, never to return.

The Egbert house wasn’t as picturesque as it seemed, though built on love and with care, it was missing a vital piece, and the two patrons that were left had been growing apart slowly ever since.

They were trying unrelentingly to be closer, and they were, they loved each other _(pure, agape),_ but John’s eyes were blue like his, his mouth was the same shape as his mother’s.

It hurt to look at him, he looked just like her. 

So, dinner is cold and uneaten, and John is debating on what Dirk could have meant, and James is wringing his hands over his son.

  
  


Love? What _is_ love?

John couldn’t stop asking himself that question, not until he understood, until he could comprehend it.

Was love the way Dirk and Dave fought over the last pop tart before ultimately splitting it down the middle, perfectly even? Or was love the way his father checked in on him at night when he thought he was asleep?

Was it the way Dave and Dirk’s Bro trained them? The swing of the blade, the pulled punches, the concealed panic at any small injury?

Maybe love was his mother’s voice, the smooth and deep tone, her dark brown eyes, her curly black hair. It was the way she smelled, like flowers and sickness, the way she walked, the click of her heels.

Maybe all of those things, each example he’d listed to himself was love, but that wasn’t like Dirk’s, was it? John knows that’s not what he meant.

He’s not saying _“I love you”_ how he’d say it to his Bro, or to Dave, or how John would say it to his father or his mother’s headstone.

He’s saying _“I love you”_ the same way his parents said _“I do.”_

  
  


Dad is on the couch, reading a book, staring down at it with a mix of both interest and boredom, as if he would stop reading it soon, for it starts to get repetitive and boring, but then something happens that draws him back in. 

“Dad?”

The man looks up and hums, dog-earring the page and setting it aside, giving John his full attention.

“Can I.. ask you something?” The way his voice pitches betrays his worry and his nerves, but Dad just nods and pats the seat beside him.

His hand catches the light from the lamp and his ring glints brightly in it, he’s wearing it again.

John hesitates before sitting down next to him, knees pressed together tightly and his lips pulled into a thin line before he finally speaks.

“Dirk said he loves me.”

“Oh?” James quirked a brow up, looking at his son as if to say _“go on”_ and John does, he looks down into his lap as he speaks.

“I don’t.. know what he means. He’s in the hospital because of me.” John whimpers, wiping at his eyes even though he wasn’t crying. 

“John, it’s not your fault-“

“It’s unrequited love. That’s his condition, he’s so in _love_ with me that I.. I’m killing him.” John shook his head, like he was coming to a realization. “I’ve been killing him this whole time and he hasn’t said a word.”  
  


Dad frowns, and he looks away. Diseases of the heart were fickle things. Sometimes they went away on their own, other times, they grew into something grotesque and horrible.

Love is a killer, strangely enough.

“It’s not your fault.” James repeated, firmer, and John’s head snapped towards him. 

“Dad-“

“Listen to me, John, really _listen_ to me.” James stressed, grabbing his hands. James’ hands were shaking, but his voice was firm and steady.

“You don’t control who you love. Love is fickle, a terribly fickle thing that grows and grows once it has started, and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it kills.”

John’s staring up at him, and all he can see is his little boy with the dirt on his cheek as he planted flowers with his mom, the boy who spoke Korean shakily, who danced with his mother in the foyer.

The boy who grew older slowly, who made friends with a pair of twins, who’s smile was always bright, who stopped eating, who looked tired and small and pale under the lamplight.

“I don’t want to hurt him. Why does it hurt _me?”_

The boy who’s asking the same questions he did so, so long ago. 

“John, I can’t tell you why it hurts.” Because he can’t, John has to do that on his own, he has to make the connection and not be afraid of what he finds. 

He stares at him quietly, like he already knew the answer, and he nods.

“Okay.”

* * *

“It’s getting worse, Mr. Strider. He seized last night, and his sight is worsening. We could do an emergency surgery, but it won’t do much to help besides alleviating some pain..” The doctor’s words faded the more he spoke.

Dave was standing next to his brother and he was wondering what could have made it worse, but part of him knows. He hasn’t seen John for days, hide nor tail of him, and now Dirk is worse.

It’s not too hard to connect the dots.

He wishes he didn’t have to.

He wanders away, pulling his phone from his pocket and pressing the number “three” on speed dial, and the words _“calling John…”_ puts a rock in his stomach, but he has to do it, he has to.

_“Dave?”_

“He told you.” No need for formalities, not when they knew what the other wanted and sought out, and John must have felt the same if the tired way he sighed was any indicator.

_“He did.”_

“And you left?”

_“I- I was scared, Dave… besides, what does it matter? I’m not a very good person to love anyway.”_

Dave gritted his teeth. “What does it matter? My brother could _die._ He could die.”

John goes quiet on the other end of the line and Dave makes a frustrated noise. “You don’t have anything to say? He’s getting worse, they’re going to do an emergency surgery tonight, maybe. Or they might just put him under. He keeps seizing, his sight is worse and- and he asked for you. The other day, he asked for you.”

_“Dave..”_

“He asked for you by name. It’s been two weeks, John.. _two weeks._ He might not see a third.” The silence on the other end of the line pushed him to tears. “Say something, _fucking say something.”_

_“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”_

He hung up, and it was cold, and it was numb. 

  
  


When John arrives at the hospital, he doesn’t look like himself. He’s paler, the bag under his eyes are more visible and they’re darker. Everything about him seems hollow. 

They don’t hug when they see one another, instead, they walk briskly and quietly to Dirk’s room, and the silence is awkward.

“For warning,” Dave says when John rests his hands on the doorknob. “His eyes are uncovered.”

John nods in acknowledgment and then he walks in, carefully closing the door behind himself. 

Dirk is sitting up in bed, softly humming and playing with a loose thread, twining it around his finger and cutting off the blood flow. He hadn’t even looked at the door, or at him.

“Dirk.” 

He looked at him, though not quite, a little further to his left side and higher than he actually was, the lack of focus in them apparent. Once orange eyes were now milky and pale.

“John?” His voice sounded the same, if not somewhat weaker.

“I..” He walked towards Dirk’s bed and reached for him, hand hovering over his cheek before slowly resting it down and Dirk’s eyes followed, glancing down before looking back up.

“It’s like looking through a film, or a sheet. I can see colors and shadows and sometimes people, if they’re close enough.”

“Am I close enough?”

Dirk looks into his eyes and nods. 

“I left you.” John murmured. “I left you because I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“That you’d hate me, that you were mocking me because I.. am a hard person to love and you said it like it was so _easy._ Like loving me was as simple as breathing.”

“Because it is,” John inhaled sharply at Dirk’s words, but he kept speaking as if he hadn’t heard.

“Loving you is both the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done, because I know you don’t feel the same, but that never stopped it, it never stopped me from loving you.”

John laughed, but it was bitter and he shook his head.

“I do love you.”

Dirk’s eyes widening was amusing, his eyebrows shooting up and his lips parting a little. His cheeks flushed red.

“Wha-what- you?.. Me?”

John nodded and smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I think I’ve loved you for a long time and I never knew.”

It’s both overwhelming and anticlimactic, but it’s true. John had avoided Dirk because of his beauty, yet spent time around him because of his smile, and his words, and his beauty stopped becoming so scary at some point.

It started to become familiar and warm, and when John thought of starting a family, he thought of orange eyes and work-calloused hands. 

“We’re such idiots.” Dirk says and John can only agree.

They fall quiet.

“Where do we go from here?” John asks, and Dirk hums.

“You could always kiss me. Like in a storybook. Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, the real one is too gruesome.”

His boldness is refreshing, yet familiar. And who is John to deny it?

Dirk’s lips are chapped, dry and cracked, his mouth tastes like nothing, John can only assume that he hasn’t been eating or sleeping, but he’s warm too. 

He presses into John with fragile excitement, and John can only trace his thumb over the apple of his cheek in shocked reverence.

They break the kiss and smile at each other, but Dirk is squinting and his eyes are still milky, but there’s a smile on his face now, _relief._

“Is it too presumptuous to call you my boyfriend?”

“I think,” John starts, reaching for Dirk’s hand. “You could stand to be a little more presumptuous.”

The smile on his face is worth it.

* * *

The tears go away, slowly. Some days are hard, he cries and there’s blood and stars and a deep ache, but he isn’t alone.

His eyes will never recover, he needs a white cane and a service dog, but it’s no trouble. It’s _hard,_ however, the adjusting is hard. 

The frustration is endless, and the way he wants to give up sometimes isn’t lost on him, or anyone else.

But, he does it. Slowly.

Months of bloody tears, glass, a newfound hatred of wind chimes and a dog that curls around him during panic attacks, but he does it. 

John’s there too, and it helps. To know that he loves him, that the crystals that had formed in his tear ducts were gone now, and he was just crying out the remaining few.

It didn’t mean John didn’t love, it meant that he did and that he was healing. 

Healing hurts, but not as much as glass in his eyes.

* * *

  
“Dirk! Did you eat the last pop tart? I was saving that, man!” Dave leaned over the back of the futon, pouting.

Dirk was sprawled across the cushion, a sleeping John laying on his chest while Hal, his husky, laid on the floor under his hand. 

“Ew. PDA, much?” Dave muttered, but it was playful and there was a smile in his voice. 

“Whatever, you’re just jealous because you won’t tell Jade how absolutely infatuated you are-“

“I’m not infatuated!”

“You’re very much infatuated, you look at her like she hung the moon for you.”

“You-!” He went quiet when Dirk rested a finger on his lips and motioned to his sleeping lover.

“You’re just trying to distract me from the pop tarts, man.”

“Check the fridge.”

There, in the door, will be a perfect half wrapped in plastic.

_Agape._

On his chest, a sleeping boy with romantic blue eyes who he cried stars for, whose eyes were full of life, who was a collapsar, a black hole, and a nova all at once.

Dirk kissed the top of his head and drifted off.

He doesn’t know how to define his love for John, if it’s a single word or a whole dictionary, but he knows that he never wants to let him go, and that’s enough, it’ll always be enough.


	2. ILYSE: Cut Scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two scenes that were cut from the final fic (they may even give a little more insight into the boys’ relationship).

**_SLEEPING TOGETHER_ **

Listening to music with John became routine for Dirk, and he looked forward to it. It helped ease the ache, if only a little, not to mention that John’s presence was sometimes like a balm that the medicine couldn’t always reach when it came to his pain.

Sometimes they talked, sometimes they listened to it in silence. On occasion, when Dirk wasn’t wearing gauze around his eyes, to ensure his eyesight wasn’t further damaged, John would point out things in the room for him to describe.

Now, it was more of a quiet day, the gauze was off too, which was a perk. 

His eyesight felt a little dimmer than he was used to, but he chalked it up to the bad lighting in the room and avoided mentioning it to John, he didn’t want to worry him.

John was sitting next to him in bed. It was only made for one person, even with some of the extra room, so John was pressed into Dirk’s side and it sent his heart racing.

He was warm and sweet-smelling, his cheeks were red and he was just daydreaming, his head on Dirk’s shoulder.

His eyes were closed, but he was softly humming along to the song under his breath, fingers tapping along to the rhythm. 

Dirk was more focused on John than the music, the way he was so at peace. Today they were listening to piano music, gently drifting through the room.

Closing his own eyes, he laid his head back against the bed, pillow resting at the small of his back where he just allowed himself to  _ feel. _

The ache in his eyes was practically gone today, and he contributed that to the fact that John was so close, laying on him and making his heart beat a tattoo into his ribs.

The room was cold, but he had grown used to it while he was there. He knew it was the reason John bundled up in such thick jackets, however, opposed to it. 

He was made for warm things, like sweet dreams and mid-summer romances. 

It was a hazy sort of thought, in his wondering, but soon he realized that the soft humming from John was gone, and he couldn’t hear the tap of his fingers.

Opening his eyes and glancing over, Dirk felt like his heart had stopped. 

John was…  _ sleeping  _ on him. The music must have lulled him to sleep, or maybe he was just tired (his eyes were a little bruised beneath).

Dirk bit his lip but it did nothing to stop the smile that was making its way onto his face. He was so cute.

His nose twitched a little in his sleep, and he huffed, adjusting himself to that his arm was  _ around Dirk’s waist  _ and Dirk was sure that his heart was going to burst.

John made a content noise and Dirk could feel his cheeks burning red, no doubt bright against his pale skin. 

He willed his heart to slow down.

John was beautiful, even in his sleep. His lips were slightly parted, and soft-looking, eyelashes brushing against his cheeks. They fluttered on occasion, and his chest rose and fell with every breath.

Dirk smiled, a little bittersweet, but it was hard to deny how much he wished this wasn’t platonic.

Sighing softly, he rested his head back against the bed once more, closing his eyes as he indulged in the sweet playing of the piano and John’s warmth.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he does remember waking up when John did. 

“Oh! Oh, sorry, Dirk, I didn’t-“

“No, it’s not a problem-“

Both of their cheeks were red, flustered as they tried to explain it away, but Dirk found his eyes drifting to the way John’s blush spread all the way to the tips of his ears and how he avoided looking Dirk in the eyes.

“Did you sleep well?”

“What?” The question was sudden enough to make John look up at him in confusion and Dirk smiled.

“Did _you_ sleep well?” He repeated and John nodded slowly.

“Well, then it’s really not a problem. Besides, I slept well too.”

John smiled, cheeks glowing red and his eyes soft as he nodded, accepting Dirk’s answer.

“I should get going. See you tomorrow.”

“See you later, man.” 

Seeing John go was always a little bit sad, but the promise that he’d be there tomorrow was one he never broke.

* * *

**_SEEING THROUGH TOUCH_ **

Dirk’s eyes were.. pale. A pale orange covered by a milky white film, unfocused as he flinched away from the change of light, gauze falling unceremoniously into his lap.

John was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to take the gauze off, it’s not like he was bleeding or anything, and even then, he was sure the doctor wouldn’t want him doing it on account of not further injuring his eyes further.

“Can you see me?”

“Kind of,” Dirk started, stilted and unsure of his words. 

“It’s blurry, mostly, like-like looking through a foggy window.”

John winched at the description, even his eyesight without his glasses was better than that.

“I.. I’m sorry, Dirk.” John whispered and he watched Dirk’s eyes grow mournful, ever expressive and full of emotion.

“It’s not your fault.” He whispers back, reaching his hand out slowly before drawing it back.

“Can I..?” He asks, and John is confused but he also trusts Dirk— he doesn’t know where it comes from, the trust and the way he just  _ feels  _ around the albino boy, completely at ease in a way he can’t compare to Dave, like two sides of the same coin.

“Go ahead.” John reassures, answer a few seconds too late if the worried look on Dirk’s face was anything to go by.

Worry, more than likely thinking he’d pushed some boundary, but the tension in his shoulders relaxed some when he received John’s approval and then he rested his hand against John’s cheek.

His skin was soft under his hand, he knows he’s cold, a lot colder now that he’s been stuck in the hospital. Even on a diet of food  _ not  _ from a takeout menu, the chill in his blood doesn’t go away.

He traces his fingers over John’s face, and he hears the boy suck in a soft, shuddering gasp. 

His fingers follow the curse of his nose, the arch of his eyebrows, over the bow of his top lip. There are small bumps of scattered acne, even under the feel of his hands, John was heartachingly  _ beautiful. _

Dirk found himself smiling softly, dropping his hand away after resting it against John’s cheek where it had started.

“Thank you,” His voice cracks and he clears it, cheeks burning in embarrassment.

“You.. Of course, Dirk, of course.”

Dirk wishes he knew just how thankful he was.


End file.
